Under cover police offices first enter the Double Dragon Massage Parlor before the inspectors with the San Francisco Health Department enter on their surprise visits, Tuesday Nov. 25, 2008, in San Francisco, Calif. For the last two years the city of San Francisco has said it wants to crack down on brothels that front as massage parlors and parlors that have repeat health code violations. Yet city codes make it hard for the city to revoke illegal operators' licenses and the health department does not have enough staff to investigate the violations. less

Under cover police offices first enter the Double Dragon Massage Parlor before the inspectors with the San Francisco Health Department enter on their surprise visits, Tuesday Nov. 25, 2008, in San Francisco, ... more

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

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Ed Walsh of the San Francisco Health Department fills out a inspection report, Tuesday Nov. 25, 2008 during a surprise visits to the Moonlight Spa massage parlor, in San Francisco, Calif.

Ed Walsh of the San Francisco Health Department fills out a inspection report, Tuesday Nov. 25, 2008 during a surprise visits to the Moonlight Spa massage parlor, in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

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S.F.'s ambiguous attitude toward brothels

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Two years after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom called for a crackdown on brothels that front as massage parlors, city health officials say they know of more than 50 city-licensed establishments where they suspect sex is traded for money.

Yet health officials have no plans to revoke the city permits and shut them down, despite several cases where undercover officers have cited workers for soliciting sex. One parlor continues to operate even though, during a raid, the mayor personally walked in on a man engaged in a sex act with a young woman on the lobby couch.

The sex shops exist in plain sight from the Sunset District to downtown, serving clients who walk into so-called spas, often with bathtubs, wall-to-wall mirrors and scantily clad women. In some places, the women are willing participants; however, San Francisco also is a sex-trafficking hub where women are forced into prostitution.

Some health department staff members say they're frustrated. There is only one inspector to oversee the city's 150 sites with massage permits, and officials say they lack the legal and financial resources to aggressively pursue cases where they suspect prostitution.

And despite the mayor's professed interest in going after the erotic massage parlors, the official line at the health department is that that the agency's job is to look for health code violations - not stop prostitution.

"Our inspections are about following the rules for massage establishments. We can't answer whether people are exchanging sex for money," said Mitch Katz, director of San Francisco's Department of Public Health.

Newsom declined to comment for this story. A mayoral spokesman said that Katz was speaking on the mayor's behalf.

Since even before the Gold Rush, the city has been ambivalent about the sex industry. In 1849, nearly two-thirds of the 300 women in San Francisco were prostitutes, according to some estimates. And although prostitution was illegal in 1911, the city's health board ran a medical clinic for sex workers.

Most recently, in November, voters rejected Proposition K, which would have decriminalized prostitution. Yet nearly 41 percent of voters - 140,185 individuals - thought sex for money should be allowed.

Health department workers who believe that part of their duty is to shut down licensed massage establishments that are actually brothels say their hands are tied.

"In a way, it feels like we have licensed brothels, but we're stuck," said Ed Walsh, the city's sole massage parlor inspector. "There are a lot of them that have permits where we suspect something is going on, and they've had permits for years."

In plain sight

On a recent chilly evening, Walsh and some members of an anti-sex-trafficking taskforce arrived at Double Dragon Massage at 145 Waverly Place in Chinatown. The taskforce was convened in the summer of 2005 by Newsom and includes police officers and inspectors from the planning, building and fire departments.

Startled by the unannounced visit, several women in skimpy lingerie shifted on velvety red couches, trying to cover their bodies with towels and overcoats. Two of them did not have massage permits.

Walsh cited them for wearing improper attire and for not having licenses. He cited the owner for hiring unlicensed workers.

Although the Double Dragon is on the city's "high-risk" list and, according to city law, could be closed for just one of those violations, that outcome is not likely.

Walsh works from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and is required to visit every massage establishment in the city twice a year, whether or not it is suspected of illegal activity. He said it's hard to prove that a particular parlor has a pattern of code violations when he has so few opportunities for repeat visits - especially in the evening hours when business picks up at the brothels.

And when he does feel like he has a strong case, there is little guarantee his own department will agree. Under current practices, when Walsh requests a fine, suspension or permit revocation, that recommendation is reviewed by a hearing officer, who also is a city health department employee.

The officer's guidelines are flexible, and the outcome is up to his discretion. History indicates that it is rare for the hearing officers to close city-authorized massage parlors.

While nearly 50 parlors have closed since 2006, only seven of them had city permits. After federal raids, three had their permits revoked and two shut down voluntarily. Since then two parlors were closed for planning code violations unrelated to the raids. Yet over the same period, Walsh has issued 221 citations and collected $92,950 in fines against permitted operations.

So why have so few licensed shops been closed?

Health officials said the parlor owners put up major fights, employing high-priced attorneys to help them keep their businesses. To defend the raid-related cases, the health department used lawyers from the city attorney's office to back up their case. That cost about $500,000 to the health department budget, which is now shrinking - and so far this year has been cut by several million dollars.

Not a top priority

Katz said he believes stopping prostitution at massage establishments is the job of the Police Department. The crime, commonly charged as a misdemeanor with minimal penalties, is understandably not a top priority for the police, either, he said.

"I think the reason there is not a more aggressive approach is that there is some reasonable ambivalence in people about prostitution and some real bureaucratic and jurisdictional issues around it," Katz said.

Police officials say that like other vice crimes, prostitution is investigated based on public complaints. Budget constraints also limit how many prostitution busts they can pursue, police say.

Historically, the city's attitude toward illegal massage parlors, like its stance on prostitution, has been passive, with sporadic episodes of enforcement.

In the 1990s, new massage parlors were banned in several neighborhoods because they were seen as associated with drug sales and prostitution. In 1998, the Board of Supervisors banned new massage parlors in the Tenderloin, where they were - and still are - heavily concentrated. More recently, the supervisors passed a law requiring special permits and public hearings for all new massage parlors.

San Francisco's illegal massage business came back into the spotlight in 2005 when federal agents raided 10 parlors suspected of being central to a Bay Area sex trafficking operation involving Korean women, many of whom were duped into coming to the United States.

An estimated 100 women were removed from the locales, some of which had beds instead of massage tables, secret back doors, trap doors and hiding places.

Newsom convened the sex trafficking taskforce to conduct surprise inspections and provide information and social service referrals to women who might be held against their will. He even went on several surprise inspections and walked in on two sex acts.

In October of this year, Newsom pleaded with voters to reject Prop. K and recounted one of the scenes. Standing in front the Sun Spa on Geary Boulevard, one of the brothels shut down after the raids, Newsom said, "Behind me, what you see is a slavery camp. This is a slavery brothel."

But Sophia's Spa - another Geary locale, where Newsom walked in on a sex act on the lobby couch - is still open for business.

Police involved

In the past two years, the Police Department has conducted about 45 investigations of massage houses. This year, undercover officers issued 17 arrests for soliciting sex for money in the city's licensed massage parlors. Those businesses are also still open.

Police Lt. Mary Petrie said the police and health departments exchange information, but noted that even a solicitation arrest resulting in a conviction does not mean the business license will be revoked.

Johnson Ojo, who oversees massage businesses in the health department, said he would like to hire one more inspector and wants to beef up regulations to increase the odds that operators' licenses will be revoked. He said the department learned a hard lesson after the 2005 raids.

"It was very expensive and it took up a lot of everybody's time," Ojo said.

Ojo said he'd like there to be a rule stating that three consecutive instances of certain code violations will result in a suspension of a license or a revocation. But Ojo's plan doesn't seem likely to get much traction within the health department, which has a major budget shortfall and is not currently interested in changing its practices.

"If you want to say, 'You'll get X punishment for Y violation,' then you don't need a hearing officer," Katz said. "They need to have discretion to hear a case and make a reasonable determination."